A personal note: fracture right humerus, open reduction and internal fixation

Last time I posted, my right arm was in a splint, because of a fracture of the humerus I sustained in a fall. Since then, I spent six days in the hospital with a mistaken diagnosis of “septic shock” and “pneumonia.” Obviously that was wrong, because I would have likely died with those diagnoses. Perhaps I will blog later about my experiences in hospital, although I can tell you it will not be a pretty story.

Instead, I went to an orthopedist, a wonderful lady named Dr. Lee, who performed an outpatient ORIF (open reduction and internal fixation) and sewed my biceps muscle back together. The muscle had been lacerated by the fracture fragments.

She told me that I would definitely have had a fracture nonunion because of the size and displacement of the fracture fragments– unless I had the ORIF. I looked at the Xrays and she was certainly right. I now have a beautiful scar on the front of my right biceps, about ten inches long. No stitches– they used glue to approximate the skin edges after finishing.

I have been working on my range of motion, which is much improved although not quite normal. As you can see, I am able to type with both hands. Unfortunately, an incidental finding was arthritis of the right glenohumeral joint, of which I was not aware. My shoulder and lower neck still ache, although this is improving also.

I was assuming an eight to twelve week period of disability but this was much reduced by the surgery (as opposed to wearing a splint for the entire time) so here I am.

I am enticed to blog again because I learned yesterday that Wal-Mart is going to start selling human insulin for about a fifth of the usual brand name price. See next blog entry for details.

Thanks to nobody for commiserating with me… I’m so much a loner that only my family members have been aware of my situation and this blog (which is almost ten years old) has no followers. So if you’re reading this, please comment so that I will know someone has read it.

photo courtesy of pixabay and IAOM-US